"Since 1959, Delivering Profit through Newspaper Packaging Innovations"


Issue 3

A Change In Marketing Direction

In the past Stepper, Inc., promoted its innovative equipment on a platform of economic savings in the preparation of newspaper final delivery or in distribution. Honestly? The strategy met with limited success. This was due primarily to newspaper management’s desire to retain its legal liability status and independent relationship with its dealers and carriers. This was the case, even if the assembly preparation grew labor intensive and costly. It seemed like the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” fit this case.

The System is Broken & and Now Tradition Must Change
As newspaper completes have grown in size and weight with increased insert advertising, the ergonomic load in the final assembly preparation stage has pushed the boundaries of the human anatomy’s endurance, all in an effort to meet time pressures.

Some newspapers attempt to solve the problem of handling 30, 40, and sometimes more loose inserts by enclosing them all in a plastic wrapper to reduce some of the final assembly preparation. The problem with this, however, is that they shortchange their advertising customers by limiting – rather than maximizing – the inserts’ exposure to the newspaper subscriber.

Combine these two conditions – ergonomic load and less than maximum exposure of advertisers’ inserts – and it should be enough of a catalyst to trigger a change in the traditional way that newspapers handle production and assembly of completes in the final delivery.

What kind of change? Automation.

The return on investment (ROI) of such a project can be substantial. For example, for every 1,000 completes, the daily ergonomic load and preparation time can be reduced from about three hours to just 10 minutes. For Sunday, when there might be three or four sections to assemble with the main edition, the preparation time for 1,000 completes could be reduced from 10 man-hours to just 10 minutes.

Newspaper delivery carriers are a mix of part-time and full-time workers. Some work the two to four hours in the early morning darkness to supplement pay from their regular, 40-hour-a-week day jobs.

Preparation time for delivery occupies about half the carrier’s time. Thus, it becomes increasingly difficult to add to the size and weight of the daily paper preparation. The human body can push its limits only so far and for so long. In fact, these limitations were one reason many inserts were moved to the weekend or Sunday paper.

Another reason for this move to Sunday publication involved readership. Many subscribers preferred the Sunday paper because they had more time to read the paper. As a natural result, of course, many advertisers wanted their ads to run in the Sunday paper.

Most large metropolitan dailies weigh between a half-pound to about two pounds, and the Sunday paper might weigh from three to six pounds or more. The preparation time for Sunday delivery can double or triple the daily preparation time – maybe even more.

What do all these observations and changes tell us?

If the newspaper introduces automation to handle the large Sunday paper preparation, then that same equipment would be available for the daily preparation. In addition, some of the Sunday advertising inserts might be shifted back to the daily operation. The impact? Improved ergonomics and less intense time pressures for the Sunday carriers.

What about Advertising Taste, Feel & Smell?

  • What could newspaper advertising offer that its competition can’t?
  • How about advertising a product’s taste, feel and smell?
  • And how could advertisers also trip the emotional triggers that generate sales?

The advertising sales staff needs every possible advantage to compete with the television, direct mail, and the World Wide Web. The advertising department’s repertoire already includes product samples. An automatic, integrated method of preparing papers for delivery in place makes it a relatively simple task to add the sensory aspects of a product’s taste, feel, and smell.

Note that, once again, automation is the key.

Imagine how it could work:

  • Set aside certain days of the week for different product characteristics—perhaps Monday for “smell,” Wednesday for “taste,” Saturday for “feel,” for example. This would create specific spots for advertisers to match their product features to the day’s category.

    For the newspaper subscriber, this could be a “cracker jack” of an idea. Searching the paper to hunt down a prize that tempts with the taste, feel or smell of a product would draw people to the inserts like nothing else—certainly not like television or the Web. Just think how it could play out. We might see grandparents competing with their grandkids to see who could get to the paper first. At the very least it would add a new dimension to the newspaper as people went looking for treasure in the day’s paper.
  • For the service trade advertiser, how about adding a sticky note (like 3M Post-it® Notes) to the appropriate newspaper section? Readers could stick the note on their “to do” lists to call a home improvement business for future home repair jobs … a lawn and garden service … an auto glass company … a new urgent care center … or a new restaurant in the neighborhood.

Integrating automation into the final preparation stage before delivery adds a whole new range of opportunities to invigorate the public’s desire to read the paper over a morning cup of coffee—and if that coffee were brewed using the sample from yesterday’s paper…get the idea?

How to Begin Automating Final Preparation
There are two types of newspaper feeders. BIG STUFF® and little stuff feeders, and each has its own job. It’s a big undertaking to change the way newspapers are prepared for delivery. Stepper’s BIG STUFF® Newspaper Feeders can get the automation stream started by handling the large, insert-filled newspaper sections that the little stuff newspaper feeders have assembled. (See BIG STUFF® News issues 9, 10 and 11.)

For one, the project must satisfy newspaper management’s legal concerns that it not breach the independent relationship between the newspaper and the delivery force of dealers and carriers.

Secondly, the cost of automation must be justified and decisions made about which side – newspaper or delivery – pays for what. In the end, both sides clearly will benefit from reduced ergonomic stress and reduced time to prepare papers for delivery. (See BIG STUFF® News issue 9.)

Third, careful analysis must establish that the newspaper can grow by shifting its advertising sales efforts away from an overwhelming emphasis on the Sunday edition in order to promote the daily paper. Each day of the week should produce its share of the revenue. If not, it becomes next to impossible to try generating a single day of advertising revenue in order to pay all the costs of a seven-day operation.

So what’s the next step? Put on your “creative vista” hat and consider the future – an automated future.

(Read Possible Growth for Newspapers, Neglect, Greed and Indifference, New Business Model and Add Scents to Ad Dollar.)